I’m a little tired because this book kept me up late last night!! The dialogue in this is really strong; lots of banter, funny and sweet moments between Olive and Adam as well as their friends. I definitely could have read more about this cute couple. Loved the academia/science setting. I follow some amazing science folks on instagram and I was able to picture the lab settings because of them. Such a smart, heart-warming romance.

😍loved || 🔥 descriptive
🤟fake dating, banter, science
📚The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren
🎶Chemistry by Arcade Fire

Will appear soon at www.romrevtoday.com

THE LOVE HYPOTHESIS – Ali Hazelwood

Jove

ISBN: 9780593336830

September 14, 2021

Romantic Comedy



California – Present Day



After Stanford Ph.D candidate Olive Smith learns that her best friend, Anh, is interested in the guy that Olive was dating, she realizes that she needs to find a fake boyfriend…ASAP. She latches onto the first safe man she can find, Dr. Adam Carlsen, who has a reputation of being a badass. Needless to say, Adam is surprised by the kiss that Olive plants on him. She, on the other hand, is shocked at how good his lips feel on hers. After she explains why she kissed him, Adam agrees to the ruse. Of course, since they’re (fake) dating, this means that they will need to spend time together.



Adam isn’t exactly the friendliest guy around and getting him to talk about himself is like pulling teeth, but Olive needs to convince her friend that she’s happy with Adam and that they’re compatible. Soon, the whole biology department is aware that the badass professor is dating a brainiac Ph.D candidate who is on a mission to get her cancer research project seen by research folks. Olive won’t use Adam to further her project, but can he be the steppingstone she needs? What about the attraction that’s developing between them? While Adam doesn’t remember, Olive certainly does recall a memorable interaction between them two years ago.



THE LOVE HYPOTHESIS is a funny tale of how very smart people approach life and love. Love isn’t taken lightly and when one falls for a friend’s ex, friendships have a priority. But Olive isn’t in love with her ex, Jeremy, so it’s okay for Anh to date him, especially since it appears they are in love. To prove her point that she’s over Jeremy, Olive tells Anh she has a new guy, and Adam is the first one she spots in the room. Like any workplace, the gossips have a field day with their “romance.” As the days and weeks go on, their burgeoning friendship turns deeper. After a trip to Boston—and being forced to share a hotel room—will that friendship turn into something more?



Olive is working hard to boost her career as a researcher, but the dog-eat-dog of the competition is hard to overcome at times. Despite Adam’s reputation as a curmudgeon, he is helpful to Olive, especially in the encouragement part. Then, it turns out he is best friends with the researcher who would do wonders in helping Olive advance in her field. Will her relationship with Adam doom her in getting the job…or help it? While their relationship is supposed to be fake, the feelings between Olive and Adam soon turn real. Will it be a short lived “romance”, or will they take it all the way?



It's fun and mayhem in the wacky romantic comedy based around the research community of Stanford University. You’ll smile your way through THE LOVE HYPOTHESIS while hoping Olive and Adam end up as a real couple.



Patti Fischer

OMG WHAT THE HELL??? THIS BOOK WAS SO CUTE GAAWWDDDD...
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My Rating [ 4.5/5 ] 🌟🌟🌟🌟✨
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Okay, you guys, seriously this book made me laugh so bad with the bad science puns, the banter, the moody professor, obsession with pumpkin spice anything, Black and OMG THE NERDY TALK. It's a fake dating/share a room trope done absolutely well and I seriously learnt a lot about PhD and it's hardships. And honestly, all the Biology terms and Thesis writing made me miss school. (What ?)
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Olive was such a go lucky character with a huge heart, the backbone of steel and she was such a lively character. (To be honest, I want her for myself ) Adam was her exact opposite, but has a heart of gold and is loyal to a fault. They made an amazing pair and their chemistry was absolutely fantastic!! This book had one of the best female friendships and I adore Olive and Ahn 😍😍 They were each other's rock, and their character development was stunning. Malcolm was a sweetheart and I love how unabashed he was about himself (plus I'm so glad he got a happy ending ) And the cherry on top?? ADAM shirtless and the punch scene. He was such a misunderstood character (even though the grad students would throw water on his head for making their life miserable) Want to know why?? READ. THIS. BOOK !
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From the meet cute scene (which was funny as hell) , to the proposition, to the awkward coffee date, to the forced proximity, to the one side pining to the punch in the face scene (which is hilarious and the character totally deserved the punch and more) , to that ending? It was nerdy, cute, adorable, sexy, with flawed characters with big hearts and perfect!
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GO. READ. THIS. BOOK. OKAY?????
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Thank you so much @prhinternational @netgalley for the gifted arc copy!! I've never picked up an arc and finished it so fast in my life 😂

Complete academia sweetness!

Thank you Berkeley Publishing and Netgalley for a copy of this novel.

Every bit of this novel was just what I needed. The characters were well-developed and made me fall in love with this STEM-focused romance. I loved being thrust into the scientific world while partaking in a fun fake-dating trope. It was so well-done and intelligent. This story had maturity and discussed the role of females in a male-dominated field with grace and grit. I admire the author for tackling tough topics while giving readers a steamy romance that actually meant something and went somewhere.

Highly recommend!

Booksta peeps! This one was sooooo cute 🥰 I started and finished it in a day and I swear there was a smile on my face ALL day!

What I liked:
•a cute fake relationship between scientists
•nerdy banter & flirting
•supportive and caring friend group
•how dedicated Olive was to her research and work
•the SUPERIOR grump & sunshine love interests trope 🌞

This one comes out on September 14th, so if you didn’t pick it for your BOTM, I definitely recommend snagging this one for your next romcom!

Thank you to @alihazelwood and @berkleypub for the gifted e-arc in exchange for an honest review 💛

PhD candidate Olive is trying to convince her best friend that she's moved on from her old relationship, so she kisses the first man she sees in an effort to appear like she's on a date. The recipient of her kiss is the most notorious professor in her department Adam Carlsen. Olive is floored that Adam agrees to fake date her, but Olive isn't too worried about catching feelings...but maybe she should be.

Omg I love this book. New favorite book boyfriend alert. Adam is....everything. Grumpy, quiet, pining, devoted, swoony... Good job Olive.

All of the characters are very likable and Olive was very easy to root for. I just enjoyed everything about it. I could tell after only a few chapters that this would be a 5 star book. Looking forward to more books from this author!

Thank you to Netgalley and Berkley for the eARC in exchange for my review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Standout Quote: “HYPOTHESIS: When given a choice between A (a slightly inconveniencing situation) and B (a colossal shitshow with devastating consequences), I will inevitably end up selecting B.”

My thoughts:
🧪 @alihazelwood somehow managed to make a story that feels like star wars+ the Big Bang theory, but at the same time felt witty and sexy.
🧪I loved the start of every chapters hypotheses. I think they added just an extra layer of fun to the story.
🧪THESE CHARACTERS. There was so much diversity. In terms of sexuality, culturally, personality wise, and so much more.
🧪Olive is such an awkward little bean and I love her. I adore her affliction with pumpkin spice🎃. I also love the grumpy guppy that is Adam.
🧪There were so many serious topics also incorporated into this story. Such as sexism, academic politics and issues, academia way of life in general, and so much more.

Overall: I may have hated chemistry in school, but I certainly didn’t hate the amount of chemistry this book had. No but seriously I love Adam and Olive. I think that this book was funny (actually laugh out loud funny), kept a good pace throughout, had some familiar tropes but with their own twists, and overall I just loved it. Selfishly I wish this book was longer, I am just not ready to part with these characters yet. I will say I also appreciated the serious topics incorporated in this book. I haven’t always had the best experience in terms of higher education, or even my ability to separate my worth from my grades or how others see me, so I just felt very “seen” with this book which was a nice surprise. @alihazelwood is for sure an auto buy author for me now, this book deserves all the hype.

Publish date: September 14th, but @bookofthemonth has it as a pick this month if you want to get it early!!💚🧪

Thank you so much to @alihazelwood @netgalley @berkleypub @berkleyromance for this amazing arc. I absolutely NEED to get a physical copy of this book so I never have to part with it📖💙
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The Love Hypothesis is going straight to my "favorites" shelf, and Adam is going on my book boyfriends list. I loved this book so much. It has so many great things going for it: women in STEM, supportive female friendship, fake relationship trope, great banter, and the best of all, a moody, broody, grumpy hero who goes gooey for the heroine. Once I started reading this book, I couldn't put it down and finished it in one day. I was thinking about Olive and Adam long after I finished reading The Love Hypothesis! I should mention trigger warnings for a parent's death and sexual harassment. Otherwise, I cannot recommend this book enough. It's one of the best romances I've read this year!

SO SWEET AND SWOONWORTHY. The dialogue and banter was top-notch! What an excellent debut. I just loved everything about this one - 100% recommend to romance fans.

I loved this book so much! I was literally texting my friend that I was imagining Adam Driver as the Male MC, and she told me this book used to be a Reylo fic?!?! I knew my fan-fiction-spidey senses were tingling for a reason. This book had all the tropes: the slow burn, grumpy paired with sunshine, fake dating. This book was perfection.

This was a great premise for a story, but I wanted more than what I got.

Olive Smith is a third year Ph.D. student in biology, at Stanford (YAY Women in STEM!!) She's alone in the world after the death of her mother when she was 16, and she hopes to continue to research pancreatic cancer in her mother's honor. She hasn't had much interest in (or luck with) relationships (she appeared to me to be demisexual, though that is never explicitly stated), so she usually doesn't bother dating. But, she recently dated a guy in her department a few times, Jeremy, which didn't work out. Partially because she realized her best friend Anh, and Jeremy had WAY more chemistry than she ever had with him. She wants Anh to feel free to date Jeremy without worrying about their friendship, so she lies and tells Anh she's already dating someone else. She randomly kisses the first person she sees in the hallway of the lab, who turns out to be Dr. Adam Carlsen.

Dr. Adam Carlsen is a young, hotshot scientist and professor, well known for being EXTREMELY harsh in his opinions and grading of students' work. When Olive kisses him, he's shocked. Afterward, he agrees to her silly fake dating scheme because it will help him too. Stanford isn't sure he's going to stick around, so they've put a freeze on some of his research funds, and he needs them free ASAP. Having a girlfriend might convince the school that he's staying put.

Adam and Olive definitely had chemistry from the start, but Olive basically passed it off as a fluke and wasn't going to address it at all. They agree to a weekly coffee date at the on-campus coffee shop, so plenty of people will see them together on a regular basis, and that's supposed to be it. But of course, it doesn't work out that way. They're constantly being drawn together more often than planned, and feelings start brewing before long.

Olive's roommate Malcolm was delightful, and I loved their relationship. And Olive, Malcolm, and Anh's close relationship as friends too. They really helped Olive out throughout the story, and she NEEDED that help, quite a few times. Adam's best friend, and co-worker, Dr. Holden Rodrigues was fun as well! They were the major side players here, other than another character who turns out to be quite villainous!

SO, a lot of my issues here were with Olive's lying. She just ended up lying so much, to everyone important in her life. It really bothered me, even though it technically started from a place of love for Anh, and wanting her to be happy and comfortable. She obviously has a lot of issues stemming from her mother's death, and her life growing up afterward, that she needs to address. I would've liked to see her addressing them at some point (i.e.: therapy, etc.) I also really didn't like the side plot with the villain, and I didn't love how it was all resolved either. That whole side plot was a bit shocking for a book that is selling itself as a rom-com. I didn't totally understand it's overall purpose. Also, just on a personal preference note, I would've KILLED to get into Adam's head. This is all in Olive's POV, and while many things along the way are obvious to the reader, though apparently not to Olive, I still would've preferred to have his POV too. I get why the author chose to omit it, based on things that come out later, but I still would've rather heard it all from him, I guess.

I enjoyed watching the progression of the relationship between Adam and Olive, and I really ended up liking Adam a lot. It was a VERY SLOW burn, which is not typically my jam, but the steamy times, when they happened, were great. Adam and Olive really seemed to be good for each other, but all I wanted was for them to be honest and open with one another. In my opinion, it took us too long to get there. There was an epilogue, but I didn't get all I wanted from that either.

Overall, the writing was quite propulsive, and kept me wanting to see what happened next. There were some fun parts, and even rom-com-worthy funny parts, but they didn't eclipse the issues I had. This one wasn't a big hit for me.

CONTENT WARNING: Death of a parent from cancer (off-page, in the past), Sexual harassment/unwanted advances/gaslighting of the heroine (on page - NOT the hero).

OHMYGOD! This was such a sweet and nice read I was literally smiling the whole time. It's a bubbly-girl-meets-serious-guy, teacher-student trope but not to the point where it gets pedophile vibes.

The female lead is a PHD student and make lead is a professor so the student-teacher trope isn't wierd at all.

I love the pace of this book, it's fast and there aren't any extra details and the writer gets straight into story telling which is what I loved.

If you're looking for a quick read to lift your mood or spend a nice evening, pick up this one because it's mushy and cute and bubbly and hilarious.

The Love Hypothesis is an adult contemporary romance novel by debut author Ali Hazelwood. I cannot even explain how much I loved this book. (but I shall try anyway) It was EXACTLY what I was looking for. The Love Hypothesis is romantic, funny, full of heart and banter, has book boyfriend level characters and made me fall in love right alongside Olive and Adam. I love that the Author of this book is also a women in the STEM field, and I love the amount of science that was woven into the story.

In The Love Hypothesis, we meet our main character Olive, who is a graduate student in the biology PhD program at Stanford. We find her in a convoluted situation, where to get her friend off her back (and make said friend feel ok dating Olive’s ex…yes I really said that) Olive throws her lips on the first unsuspecting male she runs into in the biology hallway. Except her lips landed on Dr. Adam Carlsen, who is a notorious jerk and big wig in the department. And so begins their comedy of fake-dating errors. And I loved every single second of it. This book is hilarious and so swoony. I can’t wait to see what Ali Hazelwood comes out with next because The Love Hypothesis is one of my favorite reads of 2021!

Once I picked up The Love Hypothesis I could not put it down. I stayed up way too late reading and now I am in one heck of a book hangover. I loved Olive’s counterbalance to the grumpiness that was Adam. But Adam is no where near the jerk that his reputation leads one to believe. I loved how he was with Olive. Their relationship was completely adorable. The Love Hypothesis is great for fans of the fake-relationship trope and for fans of all rom-com tropes because Olive has some great hypothesis about romantic comedies that made me giggle. The Love Hypothesis is a fantastic book. I loved it so much, that I can’t wait to re-read it!

As someone who recently went through grad school (but for public health), I immediately resonated with the prologue and "crying in the bathroom" (it was truly the best bonding moment for our cohort) set up. I can't say what the STEM experience is like, but I think Ali did a great job novelizing this experience and the pure terror grad students constantly face but it is also A NOVEL and shouldn't be taken as the end-all-be-all truth of that experience.

I liked THE LOVE HYPOTHESIS, but can't say I loved it. The more I think about a lot of the aspects of the story I feel like it got 75% of the way there but never QUITE made it for me. Olive was a great MC, I liked Adam but never felt like I fully understood his character and think this book may have benefitted more from dual POVs. Their fake dating to real emotions made sense to me logically but I didn't actually feel like we got that on the page (except that Adam thinks Olive is a smart-ass, which I definitely took away). And the twist at the end, we could all see from literally page one BUT even that didn't seem fully fleshed out to me.

I did enjoy some of the commentary of power dynamics in graduate school (and appreciated that this was acknowledged in the relationship plot early on) and just the stress in general of being in academics (hi, I am too, it kinda sucks sometimes). And both MCs had some fabulous BFFs and I always love a good supporting best friend.

The Love Hypothesis reads like the kind of AU fanfic that you get so invested in that you can’t set it down, which is not surprising as the book is basically a Reylo (Rey x Kylo Ren, Star Wars) AU fic filled with all of the best rom-com tropes. Fake-dating? Check. Asshole professor? Check. Over-involved best friends? Struggling grad student? Epic miscommunications? Check, check, and check.

Picking up this book (an uncorrected galley proof courtesy of NetGalley), I was instantly enamored with the characters. Olive Smith, a Stanford biology grad student with a fear of public speaking, a tragic back story, and a penchant for making things worse through little white lies is likable and relatable. Dr. Adam Carlsen, the asshole professor that she finds herself fake-dating, is unapproachable, intimidating, and has been known to have students flee their graduate dissertations in hysterics after his critiques.

The pairing starts off as a mutually beneficial situation. Olive’s best friend, Ahn, is in love with Olive’s ex, but won’t make a move because of the “girl code.” Olive attempts to convince Ahn that she’s over the guy by kissing the first pair of lips she sees when she’s caught not actually being on a date, but working overtime in the lab. Those lips? They belonged to one Dr. Adam Carlsen, whose funding has been frozen by the university due to him being a “flight-risk,” who they fear may accept a position with another institution as he has yet to set down roots. The charade will continue until Ahn is happily settled into her new relationship and Adam’s funds have been released. What could possibly go wrong, right?

A reader of Star Wars fanfic might be able to see the inspiration the series has on Hazelwood’s characters, but that is where the comparison ends. While I could imagine seeing the cast of the films playing these roles, the plot and characters are as far away from anything that Star Wars fans would recognize as can be. Throughout the book, the writing flows easily with the right amount of humor and tension to keep a reader from setting the book down (did I mention that I read this in one sitting?). The desire to know if the arrangement will fall apart, if Olive is going to move to Boston, if Malcolm is going to hook up with the other hot professor proved too strong to stop reading.

This was a quick and fluffy read that kept me awake far too late like only some of the best fanfic writers can. For lovers of fic, a good rom-com, or a reader just looking for a book that’s not going to break their heart in the end, I definitely recommend giving it a read. The Love Hypothesis is out on September 14th, 2021. Find it in bookstores or your local library!

I haven’t been this thrilled by a contemporary romance in a while. I devoured it in two days (it would have been one were it not for adulting responsibilities!).

It’s about a fake relationship between two scientists and does the fake dating and they-must-share-a-room tropes so well. There’s nerdy banter, great chemistry (hello stomach butterflies! 🦋), HOTNESS, and it’s also sweet and funny. The love interest is a smokin’ hot, brilliant, mercurial Stanford Professor who had me wanting to go back to grad school.

It’s just SO GOOD 👏🏻.

(Oh, and author @alihazelwood is a badass Professor of neuroscience in real life!)

Add this to your TBR, request it from your local library, and preorder it now. You won’t regret it!

Thank you to @berkleypub and @netgalley for providing an advance copy of this book for review purposes.

Don’t get me wrong this book is good, but I think all the hype led me to some disappointment. I found my self skipping pages over all the science stuff because I’m not here for all that and while it was well researched it just went on for too long. And *THAT* scene was.... awkward. I appreciate what the author was going for but it just was weird. Whole boob in mouth? Really? Overall, they did execute the fake boyfriend trope really well and it was super cute.

Love this book, loved it, loved it!! It was beautiful and entertaining. I've wanted to read it for a long time.

It all begins when Olivie kisses a stranger in the hallways of the Stanford department of science. She did it so that her best friend Anh can see them and date Olive's ex. It turns out that the one she ends up kissing is Adam Carlsen, who pretty much destroys students' research projects and has quite a quirky reputation. Because of this, the entire campus finds out that they are "dating" and that's how they start to pretend to have a relationship.

One of the clichés that I love the most is fake dating, as long as it's well developed and here it is. The plot focuses on the development of the relationship of both, it's a slow burn and the relationship between them is respectful, Adam is a real gentleman with Olive, I thought he would be a jerk because of his reputation, but he turned out to be an understanding person.

On the one hand, I managed to identify with Olive in certain aspects, she hasn't had it easy since she lost the only relative she had when she was a teenager and since then she has been alone making her way to be able to achieve her goals as a researcher. On the other hand, we have Adam who is a monster with his researchers, the treatment he has with them is brutal and that damages the relationship between him and Olive. But I understand his point as well as that of the researchers, it makes me sad since I know how it feels thinking that you are not enough.

Anyway, it was an entertaining read, I loved it. It makes me want to read more books written by the author.

And by the way, on this account, we hate Tom Benton.

OK, WHERE DO I EVEN BEGIN? If I could give this book 1000 stars, I would give it. It deserves all the stars in the world. What a beautiful, amazing debut for Ali Hazelwood. She is going to be a great author, I'm sure of that. I mean, she already is. And I've made it my personal mission to make everyone read this book, because it's so good. I can't stop thinking about it. I finished it last night at 1 AM and I went to sleep thinking about it and I woke up thinking about it. That's when I know it's an amazing book.

If you're a fan of the fake dating trope, you're going to fall in love with this book. I'm not a huge fan, but this book made me love it. The dynamic between the characters is pure perfection, the friendships and the relationships are so good. The main character, Olive, is such an amazing and strong woman, she overcomes so many of her fears throughout the book and I found her to be very inspiring and a very good motivation. As a woman in STEM myself, I felt for her in so many ways. And oh, don't get me started on Adam Carlsen. The broody, mysterious professor who makes his students cry, who is such an intriguing figure... and who happens to become Olive's fake-boyfriend. I love him so much, I CAN'T EXPLAIN. His character spoke to my heart, the tenderness underneath that tough facade was something that managed to melt my heart.

Olive and Adam are made for each other and I was so happy to see their fake relationship become a friendship and then evolve into something beautiful.
Also, this book is going to break your heart, I WARNED YOU! It's going to break it into a million pieces and then put it back together in such a beautiful way, you'll forget you had it broken in the first place.

What more can I say? If I haven't already convinced you to read this book, JUST...WHY? You have to give it a chance, it's A-MA-ZING!

Thank you NetGalley and Berkley Books for a digital ARC of The Love Hypothesis.

AHHH this book! If you like fake dating, banter, and/or the grumpy x sunshine trope definitely check this one out. I especially loved that “grumpy” was secretly very much a cinnamon roll character and I would love to get his POV of this story. I was also pleasantly surprised by the ace spectrum representation (demisexual) as it’s not something you’d think to find in adult romance novels. It made me swoon even more over Adam doing the bare minimum by respecting Olive. Also, as a current grad student and someone who relates to Olive a little too much, the depiction of academia hit HARD. I have a feeling this will be one of my favorite books of the year.